How to Overcome Nervousness When Presenting An In-Service to Your Therapy Department

You have taken one of our courses and now want to share it with your department.
Aaagh….. but how do you get over the anxiety of public speaking?
I want to share some great tips with you from our company president:

Carol Loria, President ERI:

You just finished a continuing education course and you can’t wait to impart your excitement and the new knowledge you learned BUT you are so nervous.

You are afraid that your hands and voice will be shaking. No worries, you are not alone. Studies have shown that people fear public speaking more than death.

When I first started working with faculty at Education Resources, I was truly shocked to discover that many internationally renowned speakers got butterflies in their stomach (one even threw up her lunch) prior to taking to the stage and still looked so unbelievably calm and in control. I started asking how they managed it and through the years research has borne out their “home remedies”. You can train yourself to appear calm and most people can even overcome their nervousness completely.

Here are just a few tricks I’ve learned over the years:

Think of this in-service as an opportunity to develop your public speaking skills….NOT as a performance

Ask yourself if there were any “aha” moments for you when you learned the material. This will conjure up your enthusiasm and we all know that if you can impart that enthusiasm, you will engage their interest.

Increase your confidence and ease by practicing at home, standing in front of a mirror (or a sympathetic roommate)